Ginger Bonfire Cupcakes

As promised I have a Bonfire Night recipe for you. Today is Guy Fawkes Night celebrated annually on November 5th to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The traditional cake eaten today is parkin cake which is a sticky gingerbread cake. I've taken inspiration and come up with a fun cupcake that has flavours of traditional parkin.

These cupcakes are perfect for the occasion and relatively simple to bake. I baked these twice as I had to experiment with the spice levels and different frosting and I think they are now almost perfect. It has a sticky gingerbread cake base topped with  lemon buttercream and orange matchmaker sticks. The flavours work well together as the sweet and zesty lemon frosting sets of the fiery, spiced cupcake. My initial trial I made a golden syrup cinnamon cream cheese frosting which was absolutely delicious but unfortunately the icing was too soft to pipe tall peaks required for the bonfire effect. The lemon frosting worked equally well in terms of flavour pairing and visually it looks much better. 

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month.

Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart fromCakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

Recipe of the Week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too.

#FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. Lots of foodies events in November and this is for Guy Fawkes Night.

 adding golden syrup to the cake batter 

 ready to go in the oven 

 I made 2 bags of frosting - 1 yellow and 1 orange and then placed them both in another piping bag with a 1M star tip to create the two tone piping effect.

 Pipe the frosting a high as you can

 Add orange matchmaker sticks so that it looks like a bonfire and add a sprinkling of orange sugar if you have it. 

 This is my initial failed attempt with the cream cheese frosting - absolutely delicious but less visually appealing! 

Makes 15cupcakes 

For the cupcakes

150g butter

130g soft brown sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

60mls golden syrup

2.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the frosting

110g butter

zest of 1 lemon

300g icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

food colouring - orange and yellow

For the decoration

Orange matchmaker sticks

Orange sanding sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add in the golden syrup.
• Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour and spices and add it to the butter mixture.
• Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases - I use an ice cream scoop to get an even amount of cake batter per cupcake case.
• Bake for approximately 16-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely. 
• I made a double batch of frosting and it's plenty to frost all the cupcakes - I didn't want to risk running out as it would be difficult to get the same colour again. If you have leftover frosting, you can use it to make cookies! 
• To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar for at least 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Add in the lemon zest and slowly add in the lemon juice until you get the required consistency. 
• Add the food colouring and mix well - I use colour paste.
• Repeat for the second batch.
• As shown in the pictures, place each colour of icing in a disposable piping bag and snip the end of the bag off. 
• Place both bags side by side into another piping bag fitted with a 1M star tip ensuring that the ends of the bags go into the piping nozzle.
• Pipe the buttercream on a plate initially to get a good mix of colour then decorate the cupcakes as shown.

Toffee Apple Muffins

A quick and easy atumnal bake today. These muffins are really quick to make and are bursting with flavour. You get juicy apple pieces and melted toffee and a hint of spice to round it all up. I adapted a recipe from BBC Food and used low fat toffee yoghurt instead of milk for extra flavour. You can also add nuts which complement these muffins well but I kept these nut free as a colleague is allergic to walnuts. These were a real hit and I baked them 3 times last week! I have another very exciting bake for Bonfire Night coming up so make sure you check back soon :)

I'm sending this to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

 adding chunks of apple

2 toffees per muffin 

 I love that you getlarge chunks of apple to bite into and how the toffee has melted all down the sides of the muffin

Makes 14 muffins

2 pots of 165g fat free toffee yoghurt 

60 mls milk

2 eggs

100g brown sugar

100g butter, melted

300g plain flour

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 apples, peeled, cored and choped

28 toffee sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• In a large bowl, mix the yoghurt, milk, eggs, sugar and butter.
• In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients.
• Stir into the wet ingredients until just mixed.
• Stir in the chopped apples.
• Divide the mixture between the muffin cases.
• Place 2 toffee sweets on top of each muffin.
• Bake for approximately 25-28 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

AlphaBakes November 2015

Welcome to November's AlphaBakes. It feels like only yesterday when it was still summer and now we are well into autumn.  Where has the year gone? If you haven't already seen the "W" October round up on Caroline's blog then do head on over to check it out. The random letter generator has selected M as the letter for this month.

Look forward to seeing all your marvellous M entries.  Entry is via the linky tool below and if for some reason it's not working then please email alphabakes@gmail.com by 25th November 2015.

Quick reminder of the rules....

1. Post your RECIPE on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker andCaroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own RECIPE or someone else's RECIPE. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/RECIPES but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules.

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post.

4. Entry is via the linky tool below. Alternatively, you can email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include:

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog) 
• Your blog post URL 
• RECIPE title 
• Photo of RECIPE (to be included in the round up) 

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.


9. Have fun! :)

Spider Cupcakes

Happy Halloween everyone! This is a quick and easy project to make for Halloween. There's still time to bake these tomorrow as it's really simple and does not require any specialist equipment. The kids will have lots of fun decorating these! Life has been a bit hectic lately so I've not had a chance to do as much Halloween baking as I would have liked. I baked these late last night and they were a real hit at work today. I used a favourite chocolate cupcake recipe which is a mix all in one recipe with generous servings (makes 18 cupcakes). As I was short on time, I made a quick chocolate ganache to spread on top and decorated the cupcakes to look like spooky spiders. I couldn't find any black liquorice lace sweets but managed to find strawberry cables which is what I used for the legs. The eyes are made of white chocolate buttons and milk chocolate chips. The cupcakes were chocolatey and the ganache was divine. Great cupcakes on their own but much more fun eating all the parts of the spider too! 

I'm sending these to Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from The Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Black and Orange. I used orange cupcake cases and there's plenty of dark chocolate in the cake and frosting!

It's also perfect for #FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. There were lots of events for the Food Bloggers Calendar in October and I am sad to have missed out on quite a few but pleased that I've managed one Halloween bake.

 Strawberry cables, white chocolate buttons, milk chocolate chips and chocolate strands/vermicelli 

 place a generous amount of chocolate ganache on top of the cupcakes

 Spinkle the chocolate strands on top then add the 'eyes' and 'legs' as shown. 

 They looked really good in a red container

 I ran out of strawberry cable so 2 of them didn't have legs! 

For the cupcakes - Makes 18 cupcakes

280g plain flour
250g caster sugar
80g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
300mls water
170g butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon chocolate extract (you can also use vanilla extract)

For the chocolate ganache 

150ml double cream

150g dark chocolate

For the decorations

Chocolate strands/vermicelli

White chocolate buttons

Milk chocolate chips

Strawberry cables or liquorice lace sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place all the ingredients for the cupcake into a large mixer bowl and mix on low - medium speed for a few minutes until well mixed. 
• Scoop into cupcake cases and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before decorating.
• Make the chocolate ganache by heating the cream gently until bubbles just form.
• Add in chopped dark chocolate and stir until smooth.
• Decorate the cupcakes as shown above.

Wedding Favour Cupcakes

In case you missed the announcement in my last post, I got married recently and this is my first post as Mrs! It was a really beautiful day and everyone had a good time. The day turned out better than either of us could have imagined and we are still recovering from the celebrations. My AlphaBakes co-host and friend Caroline from Caroline Makes made our wedding cake which turned out beautifully. It was absolutely gorgeous and we had so many compliments about the look and the taste of the cake, I won't be surprised if she gets wedding cake orders from now! She made a chocolate layer and a lemon layer as requested and they were both equally delicious. I've just noticed that she has blogged about it so you can read all about it here. Here's a sneak preview of the cake. Thanks again Caroline for the most amazing wedding cake! 

I knew quite early on that I would not be baking my own wedding cake but I did want to bake something so I decided to bake some mini cupcakes as wedding favours. Our colour theme was red and gold so I decided to bake golden syrup cupakes. It's a really quick and easy bake particularly as I baked them in mini cupcake cases. I found some really pretty gift boxes which I wanted to use but I had trouble sourcing the correct sized cupcake cases. I eventually found some but they only came in white. We had some gorgeous wedding invitations made and I took a picture of the logo with our initials on and got them printed on edible paper to use as cupcake toppers. The easiest part of this process was baking and frosting the cake. The most difficult part was making up the gift boxes, putting the cupcakes inside, tying the ribbons with a custom made tag. However, it was well worth the effort as the cakes looked beautiful in the gift boxes and they tasted good too! 

 mini golden syrup cupcakes

 ready to be boxed 

 This is our table setting and you can see the cupcake boxes on the table

 close up of the cupcake

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month. 

AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes this month and co hosted by myself on alternate months. The letter this month is W for Wedding Favour Cupcakes.

Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. The theme this month is anything goes.

Love Cake hosted by Ness from Jibber Jabber UK. The theme this month is 'in a hurry' and the cakes have to be made and baked in less than 60 minutes. These cupcakes took about 5 minutes to prepare, 10- 15 minutes to bake and another 10 minutes to decorate.

Recipe is from Lyle's website

I doubled the recipe to make 54 mini cupcakes which were approximately 4cm x 3cm x 4cm.

Baking time was approximately 10-15 minutes. 

I added a small bit of icing using a piping bag with a star tip nozzle as shown and an edible cupcake topper.  

AlphaBakes "J" Round up

Huge apologies for the late roundup of September's AlphaBakes. I've been just a little busy preparing for my wedding next week and there's still lots to do! Caroline from Caroline Makes has already announced the letter for October which is W. I'm sure it was purely a coincidence that it's my wedding month! I am planning to bake some cupcakes for the wedding (time permitting) so if successful, I will share it with you all as my AlphaBakes entry this month. On to the September J entries for now and I'll see you all back in November.  

Caroline's mum Jacqueline baked a flower shaped bundt cake with jam inside which looks delicious. 

Elizabeth from the Law Student's Cookbook made a Jalapeno Bacon Cornbread. She served it with fried chicken and I'm sure it was devoured with gusto.

Next is my entry with Chocolate Blackberry Cupcakes with bramble jelly. It's a delicious chocolate blackberry cupcake with bramble jelly filling and a blackberry frosting. They received rave reviews and I have been asked to bake them for a Great Ormond Street charity event as their colour is purple.

Lili from Lili's Cakes made Jamaican Ginger Cupcakes with Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream. They were made for climbing trip so was eaten without frosting but a fellow climber encouraged her to add frosting and I'm sure you will agree that it looks really tempting! I particularly like her picture illustration of the method.

Stuart from Cakeyboi baked Limoncello and Raspberry Jam Swirl Cupcakes for national cupcake week. He describes them as sweet, citrusy and boozy - what more could you want from a cupcake?

Next we have Kate from the Gluten Free Alchemist with her Vanilla Swiss Roll which is dairy free and gluten free. She filled it with her homemade strawberry and rhubarb jam which sounds delicious. 

Speaking of homemade jam, Choclette from Tin and Thyme also used her own jam with these Apricot Vanilla Buns. She's re-invented the British bun using spelt and freekah flour and her own homemade vanilla apricot jam.

Dom from Belleau Kitchen made some refreshing and delicious sounding juices with his new Jason Vale Retro Juicer. He shared his recipes for Pear, Parsnip and Ginger Juice as well as a 'walking on sunshine' juice.

Jean from Baking in Franglais sent in Jo's Rhubarb Flapjacks. Jo is her brother's daughter and an accomplished cook who is not quite 18. These flapjacks are chewy with a layer of rhubarb in the middle. 

My co-host Caroline from Caroline Makes made Jareth's Temptation inspired by her favourite 80s movie Labyrinth. It's a simple dessert with peaches, cream,meringue and pomegranate. I think I need to rent the film now!



Suelle from Mainly Baking managed to find time to bake a Jam-swirled Crumb Cake despite being on holiday for a lot of September. It's a good store cupboard recipe and although this did not turn out exactly as she wanted, I'm sure it tasted really good.



Last but not least we have Solange from Pebble Soup with her Gold Kiwi and Pineapple Jam. I love the bright colour of the jam and the flavour combination sounds delicious.



That's the end of the J round up. We look forward to your October entries hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes and I will see you back here in November.